The nature-society dichotomy: the role of the relationship between nature and women

The metabolic rift between humans and nature, caused by the development of the capitalist economy, has led to a conceptual split between society and nature. In this dichotomy, which still functions in contemporary discourses on ecology, different subjects have historically been included on the basis of the role assigned to them by the capitalist system of exploitation. As the gender-class-race analysis shows, while society is delineated by reference to the characteristics ascribed to Western men, the predicates assigned to nature, women and colonized peoples interpenetrate. Theories that criticize the ontological distinction between humans-in-general and nature-in-general without taking this complexity into account prove to be fallacious both in dealing with the environmental crisis and in developing appropriate strategies for action. Within this framework, this contribution aims to focus on the woman-nature binomial from the studies of Marxist-Ecofeminist analys. These studies have made significant contributions to overcoming essentialist perspectives and contextualizing the emergence of concepts used in the environmental discourse. In particular, they have highlighted how the reinterpretation of nature during the rise of capitalism coincided with a redefinition of women’s role in society, leading to both being seen as resources to be appropriated for free. It will be shown how this correspondence took place through precise logical steps that saw both subjects move from being seen as “wild” to be dominated, to “passive” once dominated. Tracing this work allows to see the intersection of planes and leads to the possibility of re-signifying the relationship between all social actors, including nature itself.